Magazine Construction

I had a very strong idea of what I wanted my magazine to look like, primarily through looking at a wide range of Empire and Total Film covers. Because of this I also gained a large grasp of the conventions of a main stream magazine and how it should look. As you can see it my draft below, I liked the idea of the bar going across the screen, I felt this would fill up the screen and make it visually appealing.

My central image that I took of Robbie.

First I felt that it was important for me to just get all the parts of the magazine on the page, so that I could get a better idea of what needs to be done.  I used a still from our trailer as the background image, I thought that this image was strong and sinister enough to work. I liked the orginal look of the bars however at this stage the angle was far too large.

I decided on the title of 'CINEMATIC' as it felt that this felt powerful and would grab passer byers attention similar to 'EMPIRE'. I also put in the first of the pictures, this one being from my opening last year, minus the white text on the title, this colour scheme is similar to how I imagined it, a lot of red/white/gold.

In this edit, I added on the tagline at the top, this tag line sounded extremely professional and I really liked it. I had huge difficulties finding a font and I'm still not happy with it, I didn't realise how long it took to find a good font. I also changed the puff from red to blue in order to make it stand out more, the WIN being larger also helps.  I also gave Robbie and small haircut this was because his hair was standing out on the background due to some parts of the image I cut him from still being there, this change isn't noticeable at all, which I am rather proud of.

In order to get all elements in the banner at the correct angle, I decided to make it separately and then transport it in.

I used a clipping mask on all the gold text in order to give it shine, due to the image having a slight gradient. This immediately made the magazine look a million times better and far more professional.

In order to make the text at the top stand out, it needed a background, I liked the idea of using a gold bar, and again used a clipping mask on it to make it look more professional. I couldn't however decide what to do with the below text as you can see in the images below.

I couldn't decide whether to have the text be in front of his leg, have the banner go over the whole page or have it all behind. I wasn't particularly happy with any design however I asked some of my target audience and they all liked the 1st one best (the one with the banner going across the whole screen). I'm going to hold off on this decision for the moment as I'm not sure.

The background and Robbie were both far too pale so I edited the saturation and colour levels of both images in order to make them look better overall and less 'student-ish'

There is a fairly substantial jump between these two edits, I changed the font as it looked too un-professional before and added a small outline to CAPTURE in order to make it easier to read. I also added a slight gradient behind the puff in order to make it stand out more. It was also noted that the gab between the A and the T in the title was unusually large and therefore I edited that. I then added in the additional elements such as the bar code and date/price which can be seen in the last C. The major change however is the bottom text, as I didn't like any of the options I attempted something else. By looking at Empire and Total Film covers I noticed how many different films they refer to on the cover and this was something which mine was perhaps lacking. Changing up the colours between rows also makes it each row easier to read.

This edit is very close to the final product now. I slightly enlarged the film titles at the bottom as they are more important than the directors name and therefore should be larger. I also made the puff larger and at a slight angle to make it stand out better and I changed the size of the top text. I added the white bars, which again have a small gradient in order to look more professional and not just a flat colour, because without them there was a large amount of empty space which wasn't being used, this felt un-natural and off putting. I also wasn't happy with the wasted space in the bottom right corner and therefore I also added in a printing cross, similar to Empire. The one element which I feel needs slightly more work is the puff, as the WIN! needs to be slightly larger and perhaps in a different font

Above you can see the final poster, I have increased the size of the WIN along with changing the font to give a more blocky and bold effect meaning that it stands out better and catches your eye. The last change that I made was editing the banner, as through some audience feedback someone pointed out that the left most image 'High Trees' looked off compared to the other ones. This was due to the other images being closeups and at a higher saturation, making High Tress appear too grey and insignificant. In order to correct this I enlarged the photo making the main character larger and more central along with altered the vibrance and saturation making the colours pop and removing the grey nature of the photo. Although this photo was a screen-grab and therefore by doing so I may be mis-informing the audience of the style of the film, I feel it was worth it for creative decisions as the three images fit together far better.

AF

Poster Construction

I had a very clear idea about what I wanted my poster to look like, as you can see in a rough plan I have produced below. The idea was for a black background and a white semicircle, imitating a spotlight. The central image would be rising out of the white and going into the black, this central image would cover a large portion of the canvas, I had this idea after being inspired by the Ex Machina poster and the Scarface poster both of which contain a simple colour scheme, white and black and a key central image which takes up the majority of the page. I had the idea for the title to be red, again inspired from the Ex Machina poster along with other thriller posters such as Eastern Promises and Taken, where the red text on the black background is very striking and denotes a large variety of things primarily danger and blood.

My first draft that I created was fairly faithful to my plan though I faced some difficulties in my central image, as I was unable to find one that was a good enough quality to fit the whole page, therefore I went for the image of the girl and the main character.

In order to incorporate the ink I placed it below the title using a clipping mask, giving the title some much needed texture and helped to bring it out. The font which is currently used is not the final one.

In the three drafts above you can see a slightly more polished version. The billing block, names and certificate have all been filled in along with some slight fading around the edges creating a fade effect when moving from the white. I became worried about the black space and wanted to try and fill it. I had the idea of using the ink along the sides though I had great difficulty in removing all the background from the picture and wasn't too happy with the final result as I felt it looked too biological for the genre of film we were going for and didn't really work.

This draft included a large amount of changes. Firstly I changed the font into the one I will be using, I'm extremely happy with it as it makes the poster look far more professional. As I was still unhappy with black space, I needed something to fill the black space. I thought that darkening the ink and layering it on top of each other would produce something resembling smoke and add a bit of texture to the back. I was very happy with how it turned out however more polishing is obviously needed. I added the two other men in the middle of the poster in order to fill it out further, I thought by making that darker it will make them appear to be more sinister and also appear to be appearing out of the smoke/ink.

The next two drafts are far loser to the final product. I have made the text at the top grey as it looks more professional on the background along with moving the certification into the title and hiding it slightly. I have slightly blurred all of the edges around the ink to make it seem slightly more natural, however more work may be needed on that. A decision was made to add the reviews to further fill out the poster and not leave any wasted space. I debated whether it looked better to have words or simply the laurel leaves, I later decided on the latter as it looks more neater and uses up less space.

Above you can see virtually the final product, I'm extremely happy with it and how similar I managed to get it to my original plan. I feel it looks professional while also looking slightly dis-similar from other film posters that I have seen

Above you can see the final poster, from my audience feedback I discovered a huge error which was the mis-spelling of the lead actors name, although this wouldn't have been the worst mistake as many people wouldn't have noticed or cared it is still very important that all the information on the poster is correct

AF

2nd Audience Feedback

Like we did previously we showed a newer cut of our trailer to a selection of people in order to gain some feedback. At this point our trailer was far closer to completion as the music although not the final piece was very close to how the final track would sound. We had also begun making our graphics and had completed half of them along with putting in our first ident. We had also made our title, which we created using ink in water and placed this in.

Notes from the feedback:

• 2nd shot, remove and place at the end
• For the 2nd set of graphics, use a different font, perhaps the same as the title?
• Need to make those graphics fit into the style of the title, perhaps add a clipping mask of ink
• 4 star empire review breaks up the suspense, use shot of her getting grabbed
• Maybe add a boom and fade back in after the black
• 2 car shots don't work
• Take out 'improv side car 1' use it to make it clear that they're in a car
• Hold longer on the 3 shot, to send the message that they can't decide
• 4 stars should be placed her, between the shot of them not being able to decide and the car in order to show that they are separate
• Montage, layer in booms
• Music, hold at end and ramp back up
• Boom on the black at end
• Title should come in slower
• Ink drop needs more time
• Final music, ink drop should be in silence
• Use more booms, boom from title to credits
• Add a sound for the title, perhaps the breathing or clock??

As this was close to our final version we hoped that we wouldn't have too many negatives, thankfully we didn't as we took the advice on board from last time and made the necessary changes. Overall the main pointers were to clean up the title a bit, this we knew as we had only just put it in as well as change up the narrative graphics as at the moment they are fairly similar to each other. We were also advised to remove several shots which don't work, this is completely understandable. We also had plenty of positive feedback particularly towards our Full Circle ident and the title. We were were thankful that the title came out how it did, as when filming it we encountered several problems such as the reflection.

AF
EJ
EL

Empire Magazine Cover Analysis - Hunger Games

AF

Sight and Sound Analysis

EJ

Magazine Cover Analysis - Little White Lies

One of the key themes within Little White Lies magazine covers is the use of a strong central image created in a style of an illustration. The colours generally carry connotations of the style and tone seen within the film, here the orange and yellow creating a sense of the colours used within the film. A mother defining factor is the use of very little or no text, often only the title of the film is seen, allowing for a minimalistic them and style which follows the overall artistic feel of the cover. The title being in a recreation of a puff style works really well, allowing for the strong central image to be the main focus, while all other text and details needed are viewable but not complicatedly distracting away from the image. The floral image with the outline image over the top works really well, being clear well still artistic and abstract. Another common feature in the way in which the magazine world is through the use of the illustration itself, where commonly the magazine will employ someone to create an illustration for the cover, which is something I may do myself, possibly drawing it on paper and then developing this on the computer suing Adobe illustrator as well as Adobe Photoshop. In terms of how other Little White Lies covers compare, this is definitely one of my personal favourites, as the colour, mixed with the black as well as the contrasting white for the title draws the viewers eye on and works around the page. There is little detail, but is just enough, and slightly abstract to keep the cover interesting and attention grabbing.     

EL

Empire Magazine Cover Analysis - Sherlock

I produced this booklet using simplebooklet.com simplebooklet.com

 AF